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Wait: I thought the Conservative Party supported the troops?

Posted by Scott Tribe on July 31, 2013, at 7:30 am |

Remember that? That same old tired refrain has come from this party since in power – trying to hold a monopoly on patriotism. That includes such episodes as the Afghan detainees and whether Canada knowingly handed them back to the Afghan government to be tortured; all such queries were met by “you hate the troops and love the Taliban!” smears, or a variant of that theme.

At least one veterans group promises to campaign against the Harper Conservatives because of a stand taken by federal lawyers, who argue the country holds no extraordinary social obligation to ex-soldiers. The lawyers, fighting a class-action lawsuit in British Columbia, asked a judge to dismiss the court action filed by injured Afghan veterans, saying Ottawa owes them nothing more than what they have already received under its controversial New Veterans Charter. Mike Blais, president of Canadian Veterans Advocacy, told a Parliament Hill news conference that since the First World War, the federal government has recognized it has a “sacred obligation” to veterans — and that notion was abandoned with the adoption of the veterans charter by the Conservatives…

..Veterans advocates, including Blais, see the new veterans charter as a bottom-line exercise. “We went to war, signed up to serve this nation, nobody told us we would be abandoned,” he said. “Nobody told us they were going to change the game in mid-flights and that our government would turn its back on us, and put the budget ahead of their sacred obligation.”

Apparently, this government and this party supports the troops when they get sent off to wars to use them to try to rally around the flag (and their government).. but when they come home, particularly when they come home injured, they don’t back up their words with actual measures to help these folks, and quickly forget the “support the troops” rhetoric.